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PSALMS WITH THE COMMENTARY OF RABBI DAVID KIMHI, ISNY: [PAULUS FAGIUS], 1541
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
PSALMS WITH THE COMMENTARY OF RABBI DAVID KIMHI, ISNY: [PAULUS FAGIUS], 1541
110 folios (11 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.; 292 x 187 mm) on paper; modern foliation in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower margin of recto. Three florets on title page; underlining in pen on f. 4 and correction in pen on f. 8. Slight scattered staining; minor dampstaining; some browning; intermittent nicks in upper edges, usually in or near gutter (more concentrated toward front of volume); small repairs in upper edges of ff. [1]-2 and in outer margins of ff. [109-110]; small holes affecting individual letters on ff. [1]-3, 63-64; short tears in upper margins of ff. 23-24; ff. 29, 108, [109-110] supplied and remargined, with extensive underlining and Latin marginalia in pen. Modern blind-tooled calf; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in blind on spine; black edges; modern marbled paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
A complete copy, including the rare final two leaves, from the collection of Nathan ben Isaac Jacob Bonn, chief rabbi of Hammelburg and author of Sefer shikhhat leket (Prague, 1652).
In approximately 1540, Paulus Fagius (1504-1549), a Protestant with a love of the Hebrew language and a certain inclination toward missionary activity, invited the famous grammarian, lexicographer, and editor of Hebrew and Yiddish books Elijah Levita (1469-1549) to the free imperial city of Isny im Allgäu, Bavaria, to supervise his newly-established Hebrew press (the first such press to be founded by a Christian in Germany). The two issued fourteen editions in Isny in the brief period 1541-1542, including the present lot. The text of Kimhi’s commentary reproduced here is based on that printed in the Venice, 1517 Rabbinic Bible, with biblical citations added in the margins (see also lots 1, 239). The last two folios, titled “Radak’s replies to the Christians about some of the psalms [2, 19, 21, 22, 45, 72, 87, 110], as well as the questions he posed to them,” are lacking in most copies of this work but present here.
Provenance
Nathan ben Isaac Jacob Bonn (f. [1r])
Literature
A.M. Habermann, “Ha-madpis paulus fagius ve-sifrei beit defuso,” Alei sefer 2 (1976): 97-104, at p. 101 (no. 8).
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 258-259.
Vinograd, Isny 18